[3] "It's My Life" was written specifically for The Animals because their producer Mickie Most was soliciting material for the group's next recording sessions.

[4] James E. Perrone feels the low-pitched, gruff vocal of lead singer Eric Burdon[4] matches lyrics that rhetorically convey Burdon's working class origins in Tyneside, North East England:[6] It's a hard world to get a break in All the good things have been taken But girl there are ways to make certain things pay Though I'm dressed in these rags I'll wear sable some day The song then builds to a musical climax in the chorus, with Burdon complemented by response vocals from Chandler and Rowberry: But baby!

[8][9][10] In Marsh's view, "It's My Life" was one of a wave of songs in 1965, by artists such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, that ushered in a new role for rock music as a vehicle for common perception and as a force for social consciousness.

[11] Writer Craig Werner sees the song as reflecting the desire on the part of both the Animals and their audience to define themselves apart from the community they came from.

"[13] Billboard said of the song that "offbeat lyric and slow driving dance beat proves a top of the chart contender.

"[14] Cash Box described it as a "twangy, low-down blues-drenched ode all about a real independent type of fella who does just as he pleases.

[26] The tempo of the song itself was greatly slowed down, to the point where it bore little obvious resemblance to the Animals' original, and renditions could easily run over ten minutes overall in duration;[4] lyrics were varied somewhat across almost every performance.

[3] In 1977, The Police used to play a version of "It's My Life" in concert when Henri Padovani was the guitarist and as a four-piece unit with Andy Summers.

In 1989, the New York hardcore band Madball released a freely inspired, one-minute-long rendition of this song, which became one of their anthems.